GRID Finance is an organisation based in Ireland which has developed financial services with a view to changing banking both in its home country and globally. The aim is to create financial products that …

GRID Finance is an organisation based in Ireland which has developed financial services with a view to changing banking both in its home country and globally. The aim is to create financial products that are genuinely able to help support individuals, businesses and communities. GRID Finance has created an online community that finances itself through online financial products. It has refined the idea of a traditional community bank and has put this concept online. Its first product is a financing platform that offers peer to peer financing. This allows people to be able to choose how to help others with their money. As Derek F. Butler the CEO of GRID Finance puts it:

“The GRID is all about connecting those who have money with those that need it. The platform enables people within communities to support each other safely and securely online.

On GRID Finance businesses are able to access up to €75,000. They can apply online and they will receive a decision within 48 hours. Meanwhile lenders are able to lend as little as €5. They can earn a monthly return on what they lend. This helps lenders to be able to support local businesses. One of the really great things about GRID Finance is that borrowers are able to get access to credit in a cheaper and faster manner than through using traditional financial institutions. At the same time those that lend through the platform have the chance to earn more interest than the banks are likely to pay them for their money.

As a lender there are a variety of different kinds of projects to finance. On the platform at the time of writing was Fresh Start Foods, as just one example. This offers an opportunity to finance the opening of a modern, cool juice bar in Clontarf, in Dublin. The organisation plans to use the juice bar to serve juice, but also to offer other healthy snacks and to showcase its other products. The company was set up between two brothers who want to bring healthier eating to the Irish diet. Funds sought were €10,500, and the organisation was offering an interest rate on average of 6.68%. Staying on the food theme, KC Peaches is another organisation that was raising money on the platform at the time of writing. This company is a natural whole foods specialist in Dublin. Already doing business and with three different city centre locations the business turned to the GRID platform to try to find financing to be able to increase and update its ovens. In this case the organisation was looking for €55,000, and the average interest rate offered was 7.70%. Projects that have raised money in the past include The Art of Coffee which sought funds to refit its store, Happythreads which wanted money to invest in an embroidery machine, and Harbour View Business Centre which wanted to finance its lighting and heating project, among many others.

Getting started to lend to these types of projects is made easy by GRID Finance. It is possible to use Facebook or Twitter to set up an account quickly, or lenders may also use their email. Funds can be transferred easily into the lender’s account through use of a credit card, debit card or bank transfer. Then the lender needs to review the available projects and interest rates to see which ones appeal. Many lenders will be likely to opt for a basic account which offers free subscription and the opportunity to lend to up to five businesses per month. However, there is also an account type set up for institutional lenders to be able to fund businesses too.

GRID Finance is currently unregulated. This is because it does not fall under the Central Bank of Ireland’s remit. It is believed that there will be regulation of peer to peer financing soon. However, GRID Finance takes security of money very seriously. As such it has taken on board “client asset rules”. What this means is that funds are held by AIB in a segregated bank account. Importantly funds from clients are never mixed up with the funds of GRID Finance, and the platform promises to never use the funds of clients to deal with its own financial obligations. This should mean that lenders can feel secure lending through the platform.

“The Click Moment” is one the best two book about success that I read in the last two or three years – the other one is “Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success” by Shane Snow. In a nutshell, what is “The Click Moment” about? Fundamentally, the book revolves around two main points: Firstly that success is in great part, the result of randomness. Secondly, it describes what to do to take advantage of randomness. The author of the book is Frans Johansson an author and entrepreneur born in Sweden. He has BA in Environmental Science from Brown University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. His previous book, entitled “The Medici Effect” was translated in 17 languages and was one of the “Best Books on Innovation” according “BusinessWeek”.

The Medici Effect explains how the intersection is the point where established concepts meet, connect, clash and combine. The innovations occurring in that intersection is what Johansson calls “the Medici effect”, referencing the Medici family, an Italian Renaissance family that sponsored creators from various areas such as Michelangelo.

In “the click moment” Johansson mentions that success leaves clues. However, those clues are less than most people think. Part of the reasons for success today don´t produce the same effect tomorrow
The author fights the popular idea (fostered by authors such as Malcom Gladwell) that says that10 thousand hours of practice will make you succeed in all kind of areas. He argues that the practice rule only works in areas where the rules for success are stable ones. That is the case of how to play tennis or chess. The author exemplifies his idea through the story of the Williams sisters and Polgar sisters. The first ones played tennis and the second ones chess, due to the effort of their respective fathers, who planned their success from birth. Franz Johanson opinion is that to practice a lot can actually be a complete waste of time and resources. Why? Because in certain areas, the “rules” of success change fast. The example he gives is Nokia. Even though a decade ago Nokia was the “king” of mobile phones industry it lost its importance because it failed to quickly understand how smartphones were disrupting the rules of an established market.
Obviously, this doesn´t mean that practice doesn´t has its important role for achieving success. Simply, one should take into account how success is in great part, the result of random forces. Johansson narrates various stories of companies that were able to succeed because they didn´t know the “rules” of the game they were playing. One of those examples is the writer Stephanie Meyer who wrote the very successful “Twilight” vampire books. Supposedly, beacuse Meyer didn´t know basic facts about vampires, as for example that they can only walk at night, she ventured to innovate in her stories. The vampires from the Twilight” books can walk during the day and some attend high school. The author agrees that not following the acceptable “rules” isn´t a guarantee for success: many times it isn´t. But anyway it is worth a try to be innovative, as Johansson explains, in the following lecture, given to students from University of Richmond.

Most of the book is about how to invite randomness into our lives in other to take advantage of it. By other words, how to create click moments (“click moments represent a sudden opportunity, a turning point that can push us in a new, unpredictable, and random direction. Those moments are powerful because they allow us to stumble upon new ideas that are not obvious or logical – creative ideas that may enable us to outwit our competitors.The book is full of suggestions on how to profit from randomness that can be used both by individuals and companies.The suggestions are divided in two broad groups: The first provides recommendations on how to spot click moments and the second one how to produce them.
Overall the book provides readers with useful information that can be used almost immediately in their lives.

The world is facing a wide range of different social and economic challenges that need to be dealt with. As explained by Anna Coote, Head of Social Policy at NEF in 2015, we are seven decades on from the famous UK Beveridge report and there are new challenges now. The New Economics Foundation is the UK’s leading think tank promoting social, economic and environmental justice. NEF has a remit to build a new economics. The goal of this is to better help people and planet. One of the key findings of a recent NEF study has been that a new type of social settlement needs to be established. This would focus on delivering social justice, environmental sustainability and a fairer distribution of power.

NEF proposes developing a new social settlement. This would provide a framework and structure for how people should live together. It would define what we can and should expect from governments and what we would like to achieve both for ourselves and for others. The idea is that it is based on the benefits of the Beveridge Plan, but clearly since this plan is rather out of date, the framework offers a new approach that is suited to meet the specific challenges of today.

NEF focuses on three main outcomes for the new social settlement. The three are thought to be closely interlinked with one another. The desired outcomes are: social justice, environmental sustainability and a more equitable distribution of power in society. It is argued that these three must be pursued all at the same time. The idea through doing this is to try to address some of the most difficult and troublesome of today’s problems such as widening social inequalities, worrisome threats to the natural environment and the growth of power of wealthy elites.

social justice

environmental sustainability

a more equitable distribution of power in society.

It is argued that these three must be pursued all at the same time. The idea through doing this is to try to address some of the most difficult and troublesome of today’s problems such as widening social inequalities, worrisome threats to the natural environment and the growth of power of wealthy elites.

In turn, the desired outcomes guide NEF towards a number of objectives that help to tackle issues that may be ignored in mainstream discussion. Obviously the objectives are closely linked with one another, and as such meeting one may help with the meeting of another. The first is to plan for prosperity without depending on economic growth. The second is to shift investment and action upstream to prevent harm. The third is to value and strengthen the core economy of paid work, wisdom and social connections that people depend on. Finally there is a need to foster solidarity and better understand what we need from each other to succeed in life.

NEF puts forward the idea that the current view that the best way to achieve progress is to deregulate markets, promote choice and competition and boost consumption is incorrect. Its new economics seek to serve people’s interests better. The organisation seeks to provide a different range of opinions that better serve to meet the needs of people in line with promoting the better use of the natural environment in a more sustainable way. The ideas also include consideration of inclusion and collaboration for making decisions and working better with one another. In doing all of this it is hoped that the needs of today will be met without damaging opportunities for people in the future.

To be able to achieve all of this there will be change needed. There is not currently a full plan, but rather some suggested ideas and guidance to drive future discussion about how society should operate in the future. In particular NEF calls for a better balance of work, offering childcare for people that need it, involving employees in decision making, providing more flexible hours and shooting for a 30 hour working week, and not allowing low pay, to ensure that everyone gets a decent rate of pay. Human resources also need to be released and organisations and people need to coproduce to be able to meet needs.

Social security also has to be built up in the NEF proposal. It is suggested by Anna Coote that in doing this there will be a need to:

“Turn the tide against markets and profit-seeking, developing instead more diverse, open and collaborative approaches.”

As well as this the system of benefits would be more democratic, rounded and inclusive. Particularly importantly NEF seeks a sustainable future, and to achieve this it will be needed that eco-social policies are promoted and that these focus on both social justice and environmental sustainability. It will be interesting to see if NEF really is able to turn the tide.

Some business schools have shied away from paying heed to the revolution in digital education. They have decided for whatever reason that it does not affect them or will not affect them negatively. However, with the advent of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and other developments it can be argued that now is the time for traditional business schools to properly review what they offer to students digitally, and respond accordingly. The digital revolution is not going to go away, and it is possible that those institutions that do not respond effectively to this will not survive. This is the topic of a recent article by Christian Terwiesch and Karl Ulrich (2015) for the Financial Times.

Terwiesch and Ulrich argue that no industry has been left untouched. After all, books may now be bought and read electronically, and there is no need to go to the video rental store when all we need to do is rent films online. An ivory tower remains to be touched though. As they point out:

“A service that has changed remarkably little, despite the digital revolution, is business school education.”

It is explained that while the costs for productivity have gone down in other industries they have actually increased in business school education, a situation that may be very untenable going forward. It is possible that the increased precedence of MOOCs may be the trigger that leads to this situation changing. After all, MOOCs provide the opportunity to learn at a much cheaper price and with significantly less time required for the individual. This means that in theory, MOOCs offer more efficient and cost-effective learning opportunities for students of business. In particular, Udacity and Coursera are offering courses that could transform the business school industry.

One of the problems that the business school education industry has set itself up for is that of cost. A high quality MBA programme that lasts two years is reported to cost roughly £80,000. This is a huge outlay for potential students who have to consider whether or not it is worthwhile to proceed. With tremendous revenues possible from students clamouring to study for these sought after degrees offered by high quality institutions, there has not been a need for educational organisations to really look at what they do and become more effective. In addition to their teaching, professors also carry out research, and this is argued to not be beneficial directly to the bottom line. The costs of this research can be very expensive, and studies show that the price of an academic article published in a good quality scholarly journal is approximately £250,000. This is a massive cost for business schools to bear, but of course that is OK because of the very high revenues achieved from willing students.

Are MOOCs The Disruptive Innovation That Will Shake Traditional Business Education MBAs?

MOOCs do not carry out or pay for research. This gives them a strong economic advantage. However, currently online courses do not pose a significant threat to MBA programmes. What does potentially pose a threat is the technology that MOOCs use, which is explained to be: “… chunked asynchronous video content created by an expert.”

This approach is called “SuperText”. It is like a text book but better because it is more engaging, and it can adapt for different student needs, such as learning styles. A similar example of the SuperText is the online book: The Economy published by the organization core-econ, from the Oxford Martin School. The “SuperText” technology that the Wharton professors are developing, offers the possibility of replacing professors and this is a significant threat to business schools. It also could improve learning. There are three possible ways in which this digital revolution could impact business schools. The first suggests that the number of professors and other faculty at a business school stays as it is now. In this case the technology could be used to increase output and offer more options for courses. In the second situation there may be a limit to the possible market for MBA students. If this occurs there will be the possibility of increasing teaching productivity and cutting back on faculty, with many courses being delivered via this technology. In the third case SuperText could allow students to study from where they like and the way that the business school works could erode. Students could opt to learn what they need to know when they need to do it rather than studying for their MBA all at once. This would be vastly more efficient for them in many ways, and could threaten business school revenues considerably. Business schools need to sit up and take notice so that they can define their own futures. It may already be too late.

Can you picture a future world where we lose the boundaries of what is reality and virtuality, what it is human and non-human? A world where we coexist with fairies, unicorns, driverless cars, crazy architectures made up with resistant but very light materials that house the 11 billion people that live in a high energy green and abundant planet? Can you imagine a world where flows of DNA communicate with each other to produce more knowledge and prevent disease? A world where we don´t see money, as our cashless transactions are all made by our phone? Well, there are some breakthrough technologies that are already shaping the world today in such a fantasist way. What technologies are these? The following list, based on a report published by MIT technology review, identifies some, the ones we believe will pave the way for significant change.

1. Nano Architecture

Nano Architecture is a technology that will soon be available – within a period of three to five years. This is being created by a CalTech scientist that is developing materials that are strong but at the same time flexible and light. Materials are being developed that are precisely tailored.This makes such materials both versatile and energy efficient. Such materials could be beneficial for a variety of different uses such as advanced energy applications and architecture.

Digital Ceramycs

2. Magic Leap

Magic Leap is working towards creating 3D imagery and it is estimated that this will be available within one to three years’ time. What this technology does is enables virtual objects to appear in real life. This could have tremendous implications for the gaming industry, film, travel and telecommunications. Magic Leap is working with Microsoft to create this. It uses lenses to help people to believe that objects are real. It is anticipated that this will cost similarly to mobile devices that people already use.

3. Driverless Cars ?

Everyone has been talking about how car to car communication will be coming soon. This is estimated to be available within the next one or two years, and it is comprised of wireless technology that seeks to make driving much safer. In this case the cars will communicate with one another and this will help to avoid accidents, saving lives. Driverless trains are already a fact, for example in Copenhagen. Driverless cars can be an important improvement, particularly when you consider that around the globe more than one million people die each year on the roads. There are three players working on this technology – General Motors, the University of Michigan and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

4. Project Loon

Project Loon is a technology that consists of helium balloons that will be able to offer WiFi in areas that cell towers do not reach. This will be available within a two year timeframe as well. At first glance this might not seem to be as important or as useful as some of the other innovations listed, but actually it will provide opportunities for education and the economy for more than half the world that currently does not have online access (4.3 billion people) and instant access to communication. Project Loon promise is to connect every single member of the world in whatever place they are. Google and Facebook are the ones working on this.

5. Liquid Biopsy

Liquid Biopsy is already available. This provides fast DNA sequencing that offers a simple blood test for cancer. When it is considered that it is estimated that eight million people a year die of cancer on a global scale, this could help to prevent some of these deaths by catching a cancer problem early on, in a easy and effortless way. One company working with this is Illumina, based in San Diego.

6. Megascale desalination

Another breakthrough innovation that is already available is megascale desalination. This offers reverse osmosis desalination which is currently operational in Israel. Thanks to a series of engineering and materials advances, this technology is able to produce clean water from the sea cheaply and at a scale never before achieved. It will help to provide fresh water for a world population that is growing fast.

7. Mobile money

M-pesa or Apple Pay are also already available and it provides a quick and secure approach to purchasing items with a phone. The phone becomes the wallet. This will help to reduce credit card fraud and its importance is particularly relevant to the unbanked communities in emerging economies such as the african ones.

8. Brain Organoids

Brain Organoids are yet another breakthrough technology that is already available. This works to grow human brain cells with a view to discovering how problems like dementia and mental illness occur. This will help to be able to provide treatments that may be more effective in treating neurological diseases.

9. Supercharged photosynthesis

Further away and not likely to be available for the next ten to fifteen years is supercharged photosynthesis. This can be used to boost crop yields providing food for a lot more people.The approach is engineering rice plants with a view to extracting energy from sunlight in a manner that is more efficient than the current approach. It is important and necessary because crop yields are not growing rapidly enough to feed the growing global population. The following little video explains how supercharged photosynthesis works:

10. Internet of DNA

Finally, in one to two years, the Internet of DNA will be available. This is a global network of millions of genomes. It offers technical standards that aid DNA databases to communicate. It works through the establishment of a system for trading genetic information with various hospitals and clinics. A prototype of the Internet of DNA is a system called MatchMaker Exchange, which represents something new: a way to automate the comparison of DNA from sick people around the world. It is helpful because it will allow the medical treatment of one person to benefit millions of others.

Getting attention on Instagram and standing out from the crowd can be difficult. Finding the right hashtags that lead to being noticed can often take a lot of trial and error. Some business owners simply do not bother, believing that this is not helpful, but in fact they are wrong. Hashtags can lead to dramatic increases in followers and interest. However, there are some hashtags that may be used on Instagram that are more likely to lead to gaining attention than others. Recently Scott Ayres detailed the top 25 of these that you can use, and this may be helpful for small businesses or entrepreneurs. This is important since many businesses are using Instagram to attract the attention of their customers. Ayres found the most popular hashtags by using a tool named Websta.

The number one hashtag is perhaps unsurprisingly #love. In fact, figures show that almost 700 million Instagram posts have this particular hashtag. This is by far the most popular hashtag, as following up in second place with less than half of the number of uses (314 million posts on Instagram) is #instagood. Choosing pictures that at least somewhat reflect the hashtag is necessary, and particularly easy to do with the third most popular hashtag on Instagram which is #me. Taking a picture of yourself and adding the #me hashtag is a particularly common pursuit and this is reflected in the numbers, with more than 297 million posts having this hashtag. Confusing for some may be fourth most popular hashtag, which is #tbt. #tbt is used to put up pictures from the past, and it stands for Throwback Thursday. This particular hashtag boasts in excess of 272 million posts. Number five most popular post may be not particularly surprising for some, as it is #cute. Of course this can be utilised for a range of different types of pictures, and is commonly applied to kittens and babies. It has shown up on more than 258 million Instagram posts.

25 popular instagram hashtags

Rounding out the top 10 of hashtags, in the number six spot is #follow. It has also been seen on more than 258 million posts, and it is quite common to use this one to seek new followers. Similarly used, number seven most popular hashtag on Instagram is #followme. Again, this has been utilised to attract more followers and it is estimated that this has been used 238 million times so far. One to use if you want to attract attention to the best pictures that you have is number eight, which is #photooftheday. This one has been used for an approximate 237 million posts so far. You might alternatively try to gain followers by using the hashtag #happy, which is ninth most popular in the list. If you did you would be in good company, as 220 million posts are estimated to have used this hashtag on Instagram to date. Number ten is #tagforlikes. This one is commonly used for getting more likes for a particular post, and has been used 220 million times thus far.

Eleventh most popular hashtag is #beautiful, which has been used more than 212 million times. Meanwhile, surprisingly, the twelfth most popular hashtag is #girl, used so far more than 202 million times. In position thirteen is #like, used 193 million times, and in position fourteen is #selfie which has been used 185 million times. No prizes for guessing what this one is used for, and it is considered to be particularly good for social media marketing. At fifteen is #picoftheday (used 174 million times so far) and at sixteen is #summer, used 168 million times. Seventeen on the list is #fun, used 163 million times, and #smile is at number eighteen, used 161 million times to date. Rounding out the top twenty are #friends at nineteen, used 160 times and #like4like which is used to get other people to like posts in exchange for likes (used 159 million times so far). Finally, at twenty one, #instadaily has been used 154 million times and at twenty two is #fashion used 146 million times. #igers is at twenty three. For those that do not know, this is short for Instagram Users, and has been used 144 million times. #instalike has been used 135 million times and makes the list at spot number twenty four. Last but not least is #food, used 133 million times so far.

According to Preview Networks, understanding the paid, owned, earned digital media strategy is becoming difficult. While once there were three distinct strategies, now lines between the three approaches are more blurry. This makes it hard …

According to Preview Networks, understanding the paid, owned, earned digital media strategy is becoming difficult. While once there were three distinct strategies, now lines between the three approaches are more blurry. This makes it hard for brands, agencies and publishers to be able to decide what to do. Some of these terms may not be familiar to some executives or marketers. Consequently, Preview Networks explains that:

“Forrester defined the terms back in 2009 as owned media being a channel a brand owns such as a website, paid media as the advertising a brand purchases to leverage the channel, and earned media as the word of mouth (WOM) that happens around the brand.”

Paid media includes advertising such as banners, displays and paid endorsements. Owned digital properties include catalogues, websites, blogs, mobile and email. Meanwhile social platforms include message boards and the blogosphere. However, as explained some of the boundaries between these where there is overlap may be confusing. For example, at the overlap of owned properties and social platforms there are so-called “embassies” which include social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google +. At the boundary of paid media and owned properties there are affiliates and brand ambassadors. At the boundary of earned media and social platforms there are partnerships such as co-branding, and there is influencer engagement that creates advocacy and loyalty. Content is seen to sit at the overlap to all four areas (earned media, paid media, social platforms and owned properties. This builds trust and educates, among others.

As a result of these changes and overlaps, social media may now be defined as promotion that is not in the hands of the brand. Instead, it is based on shares of campaigns and comments that are found on the channel of the business but that may not be created by the brand itself. Earned media is different and it comprises asking friends and influencers to promote a video or campaign. Earned media is thought to be a social and PR strategy brought together.

Other organisations argue that paid, owned and earned media are no longer distinctions that can be made and that it makes no sense to try to do so. The reason for arguing this is explained to be that if an item of content is put up on an owned channel such as a blog post and then the employees post it on their own Facebook pages it means that those that are friends on Facebook with the employees that are in no way affiliated with the company may start to share the content. It is arguably very hard to determine whether this is then paid, owned or earned media, and in fact it has been explained that it falls into all of these categories. It is explained then that the owner of that content is not as relevant as the interactions with the content and the quality and level of engagement with the content. This has more of an impact.

Yet others argue that advertising and media are drawing closer together. It is explained that campaigns cannot any longer be led just by paid media. Instead it is argued that marketers have to create scale and expertise across both owned and earned media in order to be effective. This will lead to the ability to be able to develop ideas that are creative, better understand and analyse customer needs, attract influencers, demonstrate authenticity, achieve reach and cut through nonsense.

All of this leads to the question of what businesses should focus on when trying to attract customers, develop a brand and increase engagement. This is still developing and changing as technologies and innovations become available, and it might still be argued to be early days. However, organisations need to try and keep on top of the different options and what might work best in their own situation, as what will work for some will invariably not work for others, given different kinds of customers with different needs. One thing that most are in agreement on is that engagement is essential and understanding this and interactivity and being able to measure it will be essential to success going forwards.

Future proofing finance is necessary and this needs to be done quickly. With a range of new finance options having become available in recent years, such as bitcoin and peer to peer lending, as well as crowd financing, among others, there have been calls to make sure that policy keeps up with the innovations that have occurred. Writing for NEF in 2014, Duncan McCann explored the issues of creating a global financial system that can be sustainable for the future. In fact, NEF was commissioned by the United Nations Environment Program to explore the question:

“How can we transform the global financial system to ensure that it supports a sustainable economy?”

Focusing on the consequences of some of the innovations that have occurred such as those already mentioned, the organisation found five main trends. These were established by reviewing eighteen different examples from five continents.

1. Cutting the middle man

The first trend identified by the study was that the middle man needs to be cut out. NEF identified as a part of its research that there has been a trend towards disintermediation of transactions and capital. People are turning less frequently than before to banks and established financial entities for the key functions of finance such as getting a loan, storing value or transferring money. None of these aspects of finance now require a middle man, so NEF recommends cutting out intermediaries. New entrants into the market are instead providing forms of financing that are cheaper and more efficient in terms of facilitating the movement of money and capital.

2. News Forms of Credit Creation

A second trend identified by NEF was that there are new forms of credit creation. These are having a significant impact, especially in local economies. This is leading to them being able to tackle the challenge of financial exclusion. Examples that NEF provides are Banco Palmas in Brazil and Bangla-Pesa in Kenya, where in both cases the community is gaining advantages from being able to create credit. In addition to this, NEF sees that crypto-currencies in particular offer a chance for realistic alternatives to the current approaches to credit creation and allocation.

3. Leading with some global challenges

Another trend that NEF pulled out during its research was the concept that there are a number of global challenges that need to be dealt with and there has been insufficient evaluation of how these will impact the financial system. Particularly aspects like climate change and constraints of resources could be problematic for the financial system. NEF identified that changes of this scale will be likely to require the transformation of financial institutions.

4. Technological advances

Technological advances are another trend that are having a dramatic influence on just about everything. It is explained that technology has considerable influence over the way that we live our lives. As information becomes more automated the finance industry and regulators will need to be quick if they want to keep up with the significant changes. One example that is provided is the question of how insurance companies will deal with the complex challenges that tools like driverless cars will pose for them. This will be difficult because obviously a driverless car is not being controlled by a person.

5. Reviewing established ideas about macroeconomics and finance

Finally, NEF noted that economic questions have been raised about macroeconomics and finance theory that was always considered to be accurate in the past. This has occurred at least in part as a result of the financial crisis.

Regulators differ in their state of readiness for the type of society that is needed in the future. In the study done by NEF, these were mapped onto a graph. It is argued that mobile payments, crowd funding and peer to peer lending and peer to peer payments among others have the potential to drive system change. Work needs to be done to make sure that policy is able to support innovations that open up a wider sector of the population to the opportunities that financing can bring. The areas that need the closest attention are digital currencies and crowd funding, particularly since these fall outside of regulation frameworks at the current time. At the same time it is argued that environmental and technological change are areas that bankers and insurers particularly need to focus on. There is more work to be done to get to the point where policy and new innovations are better understood in this sector.

George Mathew, the president and COO of Alteryx was one of the speakers at #drivenbydata Summit that occurred at Level 39, One Canada Square the past 20th of March. #drivenbydata Summit is a quarterly Summit …

George Mathew, the president and COO of Alteryx was one of the speakers at #drivenbydata Summit that occurred at Level 39, One Canada Square the past 20th of March. #drivenbydata Summit is a quarterly Summit that started in 2010 with the aim to discuss issues concerning Big Data & Analytics developments. At the event, George Mathew set his vision for Alteryx and eloquently explained why an agile data integration solution can be more useful for businesses rather than industrial IT solutions. IntelligentHQ interviewed George Mathew about his unique views concerning this topic:

1. Could you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your background?

I’m George Mathew, President and COO of Alteryx. I’m responsible for Products, Marketing, and Strategy at Alteryx. My background has been in BI and Analytics for a good part of a decade now. Previously I was the Group VP and GM for SAP BusinessObjects BI. I tend to be very focused on data analytics especially as they impact business users. Using technology products to solve massive business problems is what I live for.

2. Can you tell us about your experience with Alteryx? Can you present the company and speak about its present and future challenges?

Alteryx has been a rocket ship of growth these past few years. Primarily, this is driven by the idea that more business users should have better tools to drive self-reliant analytic work.This has been the generational shift of our times in enterprise software that we’ve been gaining tremendous tailwind from. Alteryx added 400 new subscribing customers and 10s of thousands of new users this past year. Naturally, this kind of explosive growth has it’s own intrinsic challenges. Frankly, I’m delighted in how well Alteryx is serving our core data analysts customers in their ongoing analytic success. So the associated growth challenges are more than welcome in comparison to being unloved or worse, irrelevant software in this amazing market!
Today, we have more than 800 customers worldwide relying on Alteryx daily, and our focus is to ensure we continue to empower line-of-business analysts, enabling them to discover and share ever-greater business critical insights.

3. What did you bring to the #drivenbydata Summit?

My focus at #DrivenByData was to cover the idea that Analytics is for the People. More empowerment. Better context. Great data-driven decision-making should be democratized to everyone.

4. In your opinion what are the most important challenges and opportunities presented by Big Data and the Internet of Things concerning business?

Business users are still underpowered in terms of their direct ability to take advantage of data in their decision-making processes. This is both the most important challenge and the biggest opportunity that product and service provider in the Big Data, Analytic, IoT arena. At the same time, security concerns around data spillage are preventing organizations from really building a ‘culture of data’ from within.

5. What is / are the biggest misconception(s) about big data in your view?

The biggest misconception about big data is the notion of big. All data in various sizes and forms matters. The importance of data is not just the size of data but what insights you can derive from it.

6. There’s a difference between data science and data intelligence – how do you see this?

I think data science, data analytics, and business intelligence are more of a continuum of work vs. separate, discreet tasks.

7. Big data is causing enterprises to find new ways to leverage information sources to drive growth. What are your suggestions?

Focus on analytic decision-making. Keep a ‘diary’ of what decisions you made with data (big, small, and everything in between). The most important thing about data is how you use it for a possible analytic decision.

8. How can you use big data analytics or large and complex datasets to predict future customer behaviors, trends and outcomes?

The blending of internal, external, 3rd party, cloud sources help deliver far richer tapestry for understanding consumer behavior, social media sentiment, and outcome modeling. We are really focused on delivering these capabilities to business users, in particular, the data analysts that have been vastly underserved in their analytical needs.

9. With the amount of data increasing exponentially how can businesses sustain an information and analytics capability?

Reflecting the wider priorities of the business landscape overall, agility and efficiency are critical to working and coping with the surging volumes of data that organisations now analyse. This means that speed is key. In fact, according to Alteryx research, 72% of business and analytics leaders aren’t satisfied with how long it takes to get the insights they need from data. Despite strides forward, it still takes too long to process and analyse. According to 90% of these leaders, the ability to bring together and blend data from various sources is the main cause. With analysts and decision makers drawing on information in data centres, cloud apps, and even Excel spreadsheets on their desktops, the ability to blend these sources is vital, and this is very time consuming for many businesses. This is where Alteryx delivers immediate value to its customers, through its intuitive drag-and-drop, code-free interface. Data blending no longer needs to take days or weeks, but minutes or hours instead.

Have you ever heard of ProQuest? If not, maybe it is about time that you did. ProQuest is a helpful database for research. It provides libraries for academic institutions, government, corporate, schools and public libraries …

Have you ever heard of ProQuest? If not, maybe it is about time that you did. ProQuest is a helpful database for research. It provides libraries for academic institutions, government, corporate, schools and public libraries with a greater depth of content that these institutions may not otherwise have access to. It is a particularly helpful resource for students that are studying at any level, but also for academic faculty. ProQuest states that it is:

“Committed to empowering researchers and librarians around the world.”

It can be seen that ProQuest is certainly achieving this. It goes about this by creating partnerships with content holders, and it is this that allows it to provide the diversity of information that it is able to offer. The information that it holds also allows it to provide services that can help with strategic acquisition. The partnerships that it has developed allow it to offer what it argues to be 90,000 authoritative sources, six billion digital pages and six centuries. It also holds the biggest collection of dissertations and theses that is available anywhere in the world. In addition it has gathered 20 million pages and three centuries worth of newspapers, as well as 450,000 ebooks. For this reason it is easy to see why the database is so helpful for researchers and librarians. Whatever the topic of research it will be very likely that information can be found for it on ProQuest, saving researchers a great deal of time.

ProQuest has achieved excellence in both aggregating content and abstracting and indexing. This enables researchers, whatever their topic of study to be able to get an idea in advance of whether the content is going to be of use to them. Of particular note it is affiliated with Bowker which is renowned for its ability to organise and manage book data. As well as this, the ebooks area of the database has created some fine historical collections, and rare archives have been digitised for use by researchers. To deliver its ebooks component the organisation works with ebrary and EBL – Ebook Library. It is worth also acknowledging the fact that ProQuest has developed its ProQuest Dialog information service which helps organisations to be able to innovate. Not only this, but it has developed a Summondiscovery service which allows its customers to look through their library’s collection using one single portal, keeping things straightforward and simple for its users. Its Flow service allows students and teachers a digital space to be able to collaborate more effectively. Meanwhile Pivot matches funding and collaborators with researchers, and Intota is a management platform allowing libraries to more easily move from print to electronic media.

ProQuest offers a number of customer services that it is worth being aware of. One is the Support Centre for Technology Services. This provides its users with a contact for support to find answers and information about a variety of different issues. People have to be registered customers to be able to use this service. Another customer service is the Graduate Education Programme or GEP. This is a range of programmes that is available for students anywhere in accredited graduate programmes in library science and similar subjects of study. Training Webinars are also available for library staff, faculty and researchers to help understand how the system works as well as to create education plans that suit the needs of a library that is using ProQuest. Training LibGuides are also offered to help library staff to be able to better their search skills and gain a greater understanding of the range of services offered on ProQuest.

Fundamentally, ProQuest is an excellent resource for students anywhere and at a range of different levels, allowing greater depth to be delved into with any research project. It is suitable for those studying at community college right through to those that are studying for PhD programmes. However, it also has uses for other types of research, particularly corporate research, government research and public research. For example, it can be used by entrepreneurs, or by children to help with their homework. ProQuest claims that it is a state of the art research tool and given the volume and quality of the information included it is hard to not agree.

Some countries are more prepared for a digital future than others. During 2014 some nations made greater progress than others. There are ever increasing opportunities for businesses to be able to leverage this to their …

Some countries are more prepared for a digital future than others. During 2014 some nations made greater progress than others. There are ever increasing opportunities for businesses to be able to leverage this to their advantage and sell to online consumers. Understanding and charting where the digital economy is moving the fastest is helpful for organisations in understanding where they could target next. This has been the subject matter for recent research by Bhaskar Chakravorti, Christopher Tunnard and Ravi Shankar Chaturvedi (2015) for the Harvard Business Review. They explain that a German company named Rocket Internet has launched many new e-commerce companies into emerging markets. Their goal is:

“To become the world’s largest internet platform outside the U.S. and China.”

To date they have launched a number of companies that look set to be extremely successful in a similar way to Amazon in the USA (and other countries) and Alibaba in China. They have launched Namshi along these lines in the Middle East, Jumia in Africa and Kaymu across a range of markets in 33 countries. Rocket Internet is braving new frontiers in the internet world and succeeding. Other investment has been ploughed by investors into India which is considered to be a tremendous market for growth. This is despite the fact that India operates to a large extent on cash. This means that ecommerce approaches are focused on cash on delivery. To understand the development of the digital market the researchers created an index to rank countries for their ability to operate in a digital economy. The index is called the Digital Evolution Index. The index sought to look at the supply side as well as demand, innovation and the role of institutions. In total 50 countries were ranked.

The researchers discovered that Latin America and Asia are experiencing the biggest boom in their digital evolutions. This is not surprising given the economic progress that these emerging regions are also making. However, some strange findings were uncovered. For example when comparing two countries that might be considered well prepared for the digital economy, Singapore and the Netherlands, it was found that Singapore continues to improve on an upward trajectory, while the Netherlands is losing ground due to its austerity measures and lack of focus on funding the digital structure.

This led the researchers to categories countries into four categories that was linked to the way that they had developed over the five years of 2008 to 2013. The different categorisations were Stand Out, Stall Out, Break Out and Watch Out. Stand Out countries were impressive in the way that they had already advanced digital development significantly and continued to do so in a positive manner. Stall Out countries had done a lot to advance digitally in the past but were found to have slowed up. Break Out countries had strong potential, but a low score at the current time. Watch Out countries seemed to be in stasis and not progressing, with not much achieved so far.

Countries identified as Stand Out were the USA, UAE, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, Estonia and Israel. Stall Out countries were the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, Norway, France and Belgium, among others. Break Out countries included India, Colombia, Vietnam, Thailand, South Africa, Chile, Malaysia and China. Watch Out Countries were found to include Slovenia, Poland, Greece, Kenya, Nigeria and Egypt. The UK was found to be somewhere between Stand Out and Stall Out. Each category of country was found to face its own challenges. In the case of Break Out countries it was identified that there may be a need to develop improved infrastructure and also to encourage consumers. Watch Out countries tended to have large populations but did not seem inclined towards reform or improvements. Innovation is needed in these places.

One important point is that those countries stalling out should place more energy into trying to get back onto an upward trajectory, or other countries, especially Break Out countries stand a strong chance of superseding them. Companies working in these markets will need to be innovative to attract the attention of consumers. Another point to consider for organisations is to follow the brave Rocket Internet approach of targeting emerging and rapidly growing markets that are increasingly sophisticated.

One of the big questions facing educators at the current time is, should business schools enter the field of online education? It is easy to argue, yes of course they should. Yet business schools have …

One of the big questions facing educators at the current time is, should business schools enter the field of online education? It is easy to argue, yes of course they should. Yet business schools have been grappling with this question for a variety of reasons. One of the top performers among business schools, the revered Harvard Business School has struggled with this topic just like the rest, according to Jerry Useem (2014) writing for the New York Times. This is the case even though Harvard Business School is ironically renowned for its excellence with regard to the subject of business strategy. As explained by Useem:

“If any institution is equipped to handle questions of strategy it is Harvard Business School, whose professors have coined so much of the strategic lexicon used in classrooms and boardrooms…. Competitive advantage. Disruptive innovation. The value chain.”

Yet gaining agreement among the esteemed professors regarding whether Harvard Business School should offer online education and if so, how, was not possible, it turned out. That’s not to say that the problem is not challenging – it is. After all online teaching could lead to the reduction in value of on-site courses, but the other choice is failing to survive. Looking at models of offering online instruction, considering the work of Porter it might be argued that online courses should be developed but that these should be produced in such a way that does not devalue the current strategy. Meanwhile, equally admired academic, Clayton Christensen suggests that the only way to survive is through disruptive innovation. This suggests that courses need to be developed cheaply and simply and need to be online. In the end Harvard Business School can be seen to have undertaken the Porter approach, developing a “pre-MBA” which is available online. The programme is named HBX. Clearly this does not compete with the main event, a Harvard Business School MBA. Rather, it is a new product line which helps students develop readiness for the Harvard programme. Christensen has been said to argue that this is not a disruptive innovation.

One way in which Christensen and Porter have been found to agree is in the problem in thinking that technology is the strategy. As explained, because a lot of people sign up does not necessarily validate an approach – after all it could still be undermining the main product of Harvard Business School. Christensen explains the problem by pointing out that disruption commonly impacts the top end of the market last. Of course, Harvard Business School can only be argued to be at the top end of the market. However, Christensen has also estimated that bankruptcy is the likely outcome for approximately half of the universities in the United States.

In developing HBX the dean provided six guiding principles. These included that the programme needed to be economically self-sustaining, not a substitute for the MBA programme, and it should copy the discussion-based style of learning. This was argued to be challenging to achieve online. But this is what Harvard is reported to do. At Harvard lectures are not an approach utilised. Rather, the students sit in tiers and take part in discussion with the professor. How to achieve this online was clearly going to be difficult, since it would involve replicating a social approach in static content. However, the digital approach has achieved this and students that take part see the location and name of other students on a map when they take part. They then get a video clip and boxes popping up on the screen. Students respond to what is asked in the box, and are latter quizzed on what they learned to gauge competence. Live forums are also used.

Even the students have disagreed on the online approach taken by Harvard, according to its dean, Nitin Nohria. There is a belief that there is insufficient separation and disruption in the new approach, which of course, Porter has disagreed with. Porter believes that a company’s activities should complement one another, while Christensen argues that these reinforcements of one another become liabilities, it is claimed. It is yet to be seen which approach will be likely to be more successful in business school education in the longer term. Will it be the disruption advocated by Christensen or the complementary but different strategy proposed by Porter? Meanwhile, while these issues are debated, MOOCs continue to put business education online, and may perhaps steal market share. Time will tell.

]]>http://www.intelligenthq.com/business-education-2/is-disruptive-innovation-arriving-to-business-schools/feed/0Is The ‘Internet of Everything’ Leading Us To A Post-Human World ?http://www.intelligenthq.com/innovation-management/a-future-ruled-by-machines-the-brave-new-world-of-the-internet-of-things/
http://www.intelligenthq.com/innovation-management/a-future-ruled-by-machines-the-brave-new-world-of-the-internet-of-things/#commentsFri, 20 Mar 2015 07:00:26 +0000http://www.intelligenthq.com/?p=45491

Everyone’s talking about it: The Internet of Things. Probably all of us by now know what it is. Cisco even ventures to speak about the Internet of Everything, which basically is the same thing. Why …

Everyone’s talking about it: The Internet of Things. Probably all of us by now know what it is. Cisco even ventures to speak about the Internet of Everything, which basically is the same thing. Why should we care about the Internet of Things/Everything? Well, it is threatening (hopefully in good way) to transform our lives. It involves big business and promises tremendous opportunities. Its impact in our lives is so profound that it might transform what we mean by being human. Are you ready to live in a post-human world where you collaborate and live in intimate contact with machines ? Well, let me whisper to you a secrete… we are there already.

According to a recent article by Vala Afshar (2014) of the Huffington Post one of the problems is that while the Internet of Things is being researched and developed, there are not yet too many commercially available Internet of Things items to be purchased. In his article Afshar defines the Internet of Things as being:

“… simply a concept wherein people, machines and everyday objects are connected via the Internet. Within the Internet of Things, devices are controlled and monitored remotely and usually wirelessly.”

Feel enlightened? Perhaps not yet. But there is lots more. Before the decade is out it has been predicted that that there will be hundreds of billions of “things” connected to the Internet of Things. Some of the examples of Internet of Things solutions that are already being developed include bees that are connected to WiFi that will help with the pollination process, robot swarms, smart dust motes and smart sand. And these are just some of the items in development. Other examples include technologies that are being developed to help you monitor the relative level of freshness of eggs in your fridge, and forks and cups that track your drinking and eating habits. Your teeth brushing habits will also be monitored via your toothbrush. There are also more practical elements to the Internet of Things. For example, the Internet of Things could have very positive implications for the monitoring of health, with pacemakers potentially being wired up for those with heart problems, or glucose monitors for those with diabetes. Wearable technologies are helping to develop some of these types of technologies.

The following video, done by Cisco, with its epic music, might elucidate you from the transformative potential of the internet of everything:

Turning first to exploring the opportunities of the Internet of Things, all of the devices that are connected help businesses to be able to communicate/connect with their customers. Other benefits include the possibility of enabling drones and robots to be hired, and there is a company already offering this service, named Doublerobots which provides robots for remote test driving. All of this will lead to business models potentially changing and new opportunities for businesses that are ahead of the game. Autonomous cars is one possibility though of course there are currently concerns about risks related to such an idea.

Mapping out some concerns

There are technological concerns regarding the Internet of Things, and one such issue is the standards that are being developed (or not) that will allow devices to communicate with the internet. There are also concerns regarding how the Wi-Fi network itself will be able to deal with the tremendous volume of data and devices that will be communicating. Some projects are looking for solutions for these problems, such as Hypercat. It is also argued to be risks of rogue devices that will need to be addressed. Other issues include potential response times, scalability problems, pricing issues and the ownership of intellectual property. Security issues are also a concern and many people have expressed the need for better protection of their sensitive online data. Of course the Internet of Things will lead to the collection of a great deal more data so this needs to be handled quickly. Aside from this there are also privacy and moral concerns. For example, one question being raised is who owns the data that is being collected? Another concern being debated is the impact of the IoT on jobs. The jobs more likely to be threatened by an automated world ruled by the IoT are the ones of logistics, office and administrative support, transportation but many others as well.

What to do with all the data gathered by the IoT?

As you can imagine, with so much monitoring going on, a lot of data is being collected. Capturing the data is all well and good, but storing and displaying it is somewhat difficult. Currently, a smartphone represents a good example of a display and control device. However, more options are being developed for this as well. Think Google Glass, for example. There are many ways being developed that will help to display information that can help you to better manage your life. Another challenge is what to do with all the data. Without analytic, big data is useless. Companies working with the internet of things will have to think about how to use the immense quantity of data gathered by the devices and make something useful with it. The Internet of Things/everything is still a very new concept and many of these issues still need to be handled, but this does need to be dealt with and soon.
Shaking established concepts of humanity

One way or another, it is already a fact that the Internet of Everything is shaping the world in such a way that it will shake established values and concepts, such as the ones of what it is to be human. If we think about it, a human using a wearable technology that intimately links her to a web of devices, is a different type of human having a quite different type of human experience. Could we speak here about post-humanism ? Various researchers have been approaching the area of cultural posthumanism: a cultural direction which strives to move beyond engrained concepts of “human nature” to develop ones more in tune with contemporary technoscientific knowledge. Are we ready to embrace a future world of diversity where we coexist with robots, humans and robot-humans, connected through the web of the Internet of Everything ?

Whether you realise it or not, algorithms have changed our lives and dominate our worlds. We rely on algorithms for some of the most basic tasks that we carry out online. From simply typing keywords into a search engine to seeing what appears in online recommendations, all of this is controlled by algorithms. Even our purchases online are in some cases managed by algorithms, as we use search engines to find and select suitable products. Have you ever noticed how unstable the price of a book can be, if you shop it online ? Do you know why? it is because of algorithms.In a few decades algorithms can substitute human in many of their jobs and tasks. Algorithms can run funds accounting for billions of dollars, and it is algorithms that reside behind what some futurologists call as the internet of everything revolution, or the shift for a new economical system called the collaborative economy/sharing economy.

“… any well-defined computational procedure that takes some value or set of values as input and produces some value or set of values, as output. An algorithm is thus a sequence of computational steps that transform the input into the output.”

The following animated video, done by Ted-ed, the newest project launched by TED, that aims to create lessons worth sharing, explains in a visual appealing way, what is an algorithm :

So if we oversimplify a bit, there are three characteristics that algorithms must have in order to categorise them as an algorithm. These are that the algorithm must be finite so that it does eventually solve the problem, it needs to have well defined instructions so that it is unambiguous in following the same instructions each time, and it should be effective in solving problems. While discussion of algorithms has hotted up in the past few years with the intense use of these by many organisations online, in fact algorithms have been used for many centuries and are not a new innovation by man. Based on his own definition and characteristics, Otero has developed a list of the top 10 algorithms that influence our lives currently:

1.Merge sort, quick sort and heap sort – this is an algorithm designed to sort elements, and all three of these achieve this. The merge sort algorithm in particular is important and it uses comparisons to solve problems. Quick sort uses an alternative method to organising data and is considered efficient in sorting data. Heap sort is an algorithm that utilises a priority queue. These types of algorithms are reported to be beneficial in data mining, link analysis and artificial intelligence, so they are extremely important to our lives.

2. Fourier Transform and Fast Fourier Transform – these algorithms are considered to be simple but powerful. They take signals from their time domain into their frequency domain and the other way around. All digital activities are currently thought to depend on these algorithms, so again, they essential to modern life. They are included in Wi-Fi, internet and phones, among others.

3. Dijkstra’s algorithm – this approach is a graph search algorithm and it works to use the problem modelled as a graph in order to find the shortest route between two points.

4. RSA algorithm – the RSA algorithm is essential to security online, and is used in cryptography and cyber security. This algorithm provides a solution that allows public keys to be shared between different platforms and users to provide an option for cryptography. Next time you buy something online you will probably be using this algorithm whether you realise it or not.

5. Secure hash algorithm – this is again associated with cryptography. It is included in the functioning of email, antivirus programmes and app stores among others. It helps to figure out whether you downloaded what you expected to or if instead you have been attacked online.

6. Integer factorisation - this algorithm is based heavily on maths and it also helps in securing safe cryptographic approaches. It uses prime factorisation and this makes the problems it creates hard to solve.

7. Link analysis – this is an algorithm we also use every day. It is included in search engines and social networks among others, so that the relationships between different points can be understood. The link analysis algorithm relies on the assumption that a graph can be created in a matrix form that shows the importance of different nodes within that network. It is used by Google to return search results and Facebook to show you who might be your friend. It makes recommendations.

8. Proportional integral derivative algorithm – this algorithm is based on a control loop feedback and works to cut back on problems that occur between desired output signal and actual output signal. It is used in airplanes and cell phone networks, among others.

9. Data compression algorithms – there are several algorithms that carry out this task. For example zipping up files is one of these. They are also found in how web page data is downloaded, among other essential areas.

10. Random number generation – this is used in cryptography, video games and artificial intelligence.

If you would like to know more about algorithms there are many MOOCs available for free online, done by Coursera, MIT, Opencourseware etc. You can spend hours there, understanding to the deepest detail the meanders of algorithms.

Answering the “how” questions behind analytics

Neil Chandler, a research VP from Gartner, the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company, is one of the confirmed speakers at #drivenbydata Summit that will happen at Level 39, One Canada Square the coming 20th of March. This is a quarterly Summit that will discuss issues concerning Big Data & Analytics developments. Neil Chandler has a long experience in the field of business intelligence and his talk at the event promises to set the scene for the day, and answer some of the “how” questions regarding value & culture of Analytics. IntelligentHQ interviewed Neil Chandler about his unique views concerning this topic:

1. Could you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your background?

I am Neil Chandler, a Gartner Research VP. My main focuses are on business intelligence, analytics and performance management. This includes writing about and advising organizations about market trends, vendors, service providers and best practices. I have more than 20 years of experience in strategic product marketing, project management and implementation projects in the field of business intelligence, corporate performance management and information systems. I joined Gartner in 2006.

2. Can you tell us about your experience working for Gartner?

I have a leading position in driving Gartner’s research into business analytics and performance management incorporating modeling, metrics, scorecards, strategy management and corporate performance management.

3. What will you bring to the #drivenbydata Summit?

I intend to focus on the driving forces behind analytics and help to answer some of the more difficult “how” questions. In my opinion too much of the conversation around Analytics is related to “what” questions regarding technology & architecture and not enough consideration is given to the “how” questions regarding value & culture.

4. In your opinion what are the most important challenges and opportunities presented by Big Data and the Internet of Things concerning business?

The most important considerations around new or disruptive technologies should be concerning how do we utilise them to drive increase efficiency, drive growth, reduce risks and foster innovation. Analytics enables the harnessing of the ever increasing volumes, velocity and variety of information to make smarter business decisions that help run, grow and transform our businesses.

5. What is / are the biggest misconception(s) about big data in your view?

Big Data is not new. Big Data is a technology, not a solution.

6. Big data forces business to wrestle key strategic and operational challenges. What do you propose as the best ways to deal with these challenges?

Managing the increasing user demands arising from new and more extensive sources of information, and more powerful analytic capabilities, requires a shift not only in technology, but also in people, skills, processes and business alignment. However, many IT functions have yet to make the transition required for the IT department to become a suitable organization to support business analytics.

7. How can one harness massive troves of consumer information most effectively?

We need to mature in our strategies for Information and Analytics. We need to focus on the business outcomes and values rather than the technology that supports them. Business must understand that data-driven strategies are especially beneficial when considering how to leverage existing data assets (such as big data and other systems of record), whereas value-driven approaches are beneficial for focusing on strategic goals.

8. There’s a difference between data science and data intelligence. How do you see this?

This is a question of semantics. The real issue is that organizations need to adopt more sophisticated uses of analytics and there is a shortage of available skills. To close this gap vendors are developing easier to use analytics to enable more users to self-service and this gives rise to an increased pool of producers. However, some use cases and business problems will still require complex and sophisticated approaches beyond the capability of the average citizen and that is where the data scientists will gravitate.

9. Big data is causing enterprises to find new ways to leverage information sources to drive growth. What are your suggestions?

Big data analytics is the technical solution to the convergence of forces around social, information, mobile and cloud. Convergence is turning enterprises into information & value-driven companies, and mature big data analytics is a way to get there. The interplay of data, analytics, information governance and information quality with respect to these forces is the deciding factor for big data analytics success.

10. How can you use big data analytics or large and complex datasets to predict future customer behaviors, trends and outcomes?

Organizations need to recognise that just adding more data is not going to necessarily get them any nearer to their business goals. We must harness the data with analytics. So therefore, the key step is to employ a range of analytic solutions orientated to a number of business areas around customer and profitability, sales performance, marketing effectiveness, and so on. Through the application of analytics we will derive the benefits of more information.

Big Data heat map by industry Gartner

11. What are the biggest trends you see regarding Enterprise Information Management?

EIM is a discipline of its own. EIM enables people from across the enterprise to share, manage and reuse information that was created in different applications and stored in different databases and repositories. But these capabilities do not help the enterprise by themselves. Leaders must design their EIM initiative so that sharing and reusing information creates business value, and the value created must contribute to enterprise goals.

12. How do you separate the full scope of big data and data from social media?

Data is a resource that must be managed. Whether it comes from internal or external sources and in an array of formats. Different forms of data provide support for different types of questions for different types of users and use cases. Some data may support factual analysis and some may provide supporting context. An information strategy is needed to help organizations figure out how to leverage all forms of information in appropriate and effective ways.

13. With the amount of data increasing every day and doubling how do you the future of hyper data and the necessary simplification?

If the question is “how do businesses sustain an information and analytics capability given the exponential rise and use of information” then my answer is through disruptive change. We need to put analytics and fact-based decision making at the centre of the business. These changes may require a cultural shift, they may need new roles such as chief data and Analytics officers, new tools such as data discovery and predictive analytics, new teams such as citizen data scientists and analytics centres of excellence, and new bi-modal information approaches to support infrastructure modernization as well as innovation.

One of the big questions for organisations is how they can get their employees to be more productive. For many companies this has led to the realisation that they need to understand what high performance …

One of the big questions for organisations is how they can get their employees to be more productive. For many companies this has led to the realisation that they need to understand what high performance employees want at work. In understanding this it is possible to help those employees to be more productive, but importantly it is possible to retain those all-important high performance employees. In 2014, Karie Willyerd published a piece for the Harvard Business Review that raised some of these important talent management questions. One of the most pressing reasons for understanding what high performance employees want at work is the fact that, according to Willyerd:

“A high performer can deliver 400% more productivity than an average performer.”

Of course that is an intriguing prospect for all businesses. On the basis of this a study was carried out of almost 3,000 employees, in 27 different countries in the world, with both executives and workers being questioned. Of the different employees included in the study, 40% were considered to be high performers, 40% were thought to be average performers and 20% were reported to be performing below average, generally.

One of the findings that was not so terribly surprising is that high performers like their jobs more than low performers, and most are generally not planning to leave them in the near future (in the upcoming six months). However, one in five of these employees were indeed planning to leave their organisation within six months. Additionally, though high performers do like their jobs more than low performers, in only half of all cases or less were they found to be satisfied at work.

Clearly this raises a problem for organisations, most of which are very eager to hold onto their most productive, highest performing employees. However, thwarting the process even further, many high performers were reported in the study to not be getting what they require from line managers. In looking at what employees value overall at work the factors were found to be compensation that is competitive, bonuses, retirement plans, training programmes, flexible work locations, vacation time a flexible schedule and benefits for their families, among others. High performers were found to link job satisfaction to pay more than other employees and after this, bonuses were important. This indicates that organisations need to find a way to be able to pay their high performers effectively and differentiate between pay for these employees and lower performing individuals. Obviously, high performing employees have greater opportunities to go elsewhere if they do not get what they want.

The obvious problem with this finding is that it creates something of a management nightmare, as it is hard to distinguish in this way between differently performing employees in the workplace. Obviously if some employees are receiving far more in the way of bonuses each year, this could lead to drops in productivity, as well as problems between those doing better financially from the workplace and those that are not. It is even suggested that it would be hard to make teams work well together in such circumstances, and that it could lead to bullying. On the other hand, failing to mark out the high performers could lead to losing them altogether.

what employees value at work

Another thing that high performers were found to want is feedback. This may be easier to institute than the pay challenge already described. It was reported that 50% of high performers want a one to one with their manager once a month at a minimum, but only just over half felt that they were getting what they needed in terms of feedback. Feedback is considered important for helping the high performers to feel appreciated for everything that they do. Once a year is clearly not going to be enough, according to this research. Interestingly also, high performers love to learn. It is argued that framing training or an assignment based on the learning that will be achieved as a result of carrying it out can be most beneficial in appealing to high performers. It can be motivational and encourage retention.

Yet another interesting finding was that those that perform less well were far more willing to relocate to a different place than other performers, at least within their own country. Only 42% of high performers would relocate to a different state or region, while 51% of low performers were happy to relocate within the country. This is particularly interesting, given that as the researchers suggest, relocation is often offered as a benefit.

Every business knows that to attract customers email marketing can be a great approach. Yet it can be hard to grab a customer’s attention when competing with so many other inbox items. Customers can be put off by repeated “newsletters” that are clearly designed only to sell them stuff. Many such “newsletters” go straight to the spam folder, never get opened or simply get deleted. So how can you attract customers through the newsletter approach? For Christina Walker (2013) of Writtent it is all in the title. A title is after all what compels the person to open the email in the first place. That means that if the title is uninspired or bland, the email will be likely to be consigned to the online waste bin. Yet with a bit of imagination it is possible to inspire the customer to open the email.

Every journalist knows that a powerful headline is essential to grab the reader’s attention. This is something that has not changed in the past few decades in the move from print journalism to digital news. It is argued that in the case of a newsletter, an inspiring title will promote interest in the newsletter, will offer a benefit – a reason to attract the customer to bother opening it at all, will increase the chances of the newsletter being read, and all importantly, will be far more likely to get the customer to click one of the links and then go on to buy something.

While making sure your brand presence is out there and that everyone in the target market knows that your brand name is important, this is not necessarily an item that should be included in a newsletter title. Indeed the advice of Christina Walker is:

“Focus on your industry, not your company name.”

This should be obvious really. After all, your customers really don’t have a great interest in the name of your company. Rather, they are interested in “what’s in it for me?” This means that dropping your company name from the limited word count you have to grab attention in a newsletter title is a good move. Additionally, customers are more likely to have an interest in what is going on in the industry rather than what is going on specifically in your business (unless there is something in it for them of course) and so that is where you should focus in order to start creating a relationship with the customer based on an interest of theirs in reading your email newsletters.

6 tips to write a newsletter

If a customer has let you have their email address, they really do not want to be spammed with offers from you every single day, at least in most cases. Rather than shamelessly promoting your products in each newsletter, make sure that the customer knows how they can benefit from reading the newsletter and clicking through to your website. This needs to be blatantly obvious to them, and ideally from the title itself, to ensure that they even bother to click to open the email at all. Focus on what you have to offer that adds value to the customer which of course requires that you understand what they want, and make sure that the calls to action are interesting and obvious. This is what will get your newsletter opened. Understanding the target audience will help you to tailor a newsletter title that is likely to appeal to them because it will show that you understand their challenges and that you have a solution that will meet their needs. Note: Verbs help bring life to newsletter titles. This can also inspire interest. Before churning out the same content time after time in your newsletter, think about the messages that you want to bring to customers and how these help them solve their problems. Then you can create content that actually meets their needs.

One factor that many experienced newsletter writers state can help is not calling the newsletter a newsletter. After all, the word “newsletter” suggests dull and drab and not much of interest to the customer. There are so many other words that you can use instead, such as trends, report, review, guide, inside information and more. For a complete set of ideas for more inspiring names for the newsletter check out Brandon Gaille. Some of the many examples he offers include digest, alert, bulletin, communication, happenings, pulse, scout, spectator and update. Your dull old newsletter will never look quite the same again!

Yesterday FutureFest took over the Vinopolis complex on London’s South Bank to give its crowded public a bittersweet taste of what the world will be like in a couple of decades. FutureFest started in 2013, …

Yesterday FutureFest took over the Vinopolis complex on London’s South Bank to give its crowded public a bittersweet taste of what the world will be like in a couple of decades. FutureFest started in 2013, as an event organized by the charity Nesta, the UK’s innovation foundation. Its aim from the beginning was to gather together some of the planet’s most radical thinkers, makers and performers, in a collective and immersive rehearsal of a forecasted future.

There was a lot to choose from the first day, spanning from entertaining installations such as Neurosis, that allowed attendees to experience a rollercoaster controlled only by their mind, to the Sweetshop of the Future, that attracted an immense queue thriving to experiment new sweets. There were also interesting and thought provoking events approaching some of the most crucial themes of our times: the future of democracy, jobs, the turmoil of economics, and the diversity of a world shaped by robots, automation, thrilling experiences and financial innovation. All this tasty soup of ideas was approached by various gender balanced panelists in talks and debates.

Will Intelligent Algorithms Risk Our Jobs ?

An interesting talk was the one given by Oxford Researcher Michael A. Osborne, that designs intelligent algorithms capable of making sense of complex data. Osborne presented at FutureFest the results of his latest research that addresses the broader societal consequences of machine learning and robotics. In his study he analysed how intelligent algorithms might soon substitute human workers particularly non skilled ones.

Another important debate was the one about the role of future elites, moderated by Adam Price, the Public Innovation Lead with UK innovation foundation Nesta. It gathered Adrian Wooldridge, Baroness Helena Kennedy and Owen Jones. This debate was part of a broader discussion on the future of democracy. Helena Kennedy’s talk raised question on how to move forward to a new type of democracy that involves much more than voting. Other interesting questions raised by Helena Kennedy concerned the somewhat outdated nation-state concept and the crucial search for more effective international legal institutions and new forms of deliberation, if we want to improve democracy in the future. Could internet parties be one of those possible solutions?

Are We All Welcomed To The Robot Economy ?

“Toast in the machine? the fate of human skill and sensibility under radical automation” was a panel moderated by Ghislaine Boddington, that addressed the impact of robots and automation in a world to come. The debate joined together Ije Nwokorie, CEO of Wolff Olins, Michael Osborne and Anna Dumitriu, an artist whose work is at the forefront of art and science collaborative practice. The four tried to answer complex questions such as how to delve in a life ruled by algorithms. “Do algorithms understand us?” someone asked. “Will they take over?” “Do we invest in people or do we invest in the machine?” Even though algorithms will be able to do a lot, as Michael Osborne said: “they cannot do creativity, social intelligence.” Can there be a danger of going too far? The audience expressed concern of using algorithms and robots, as a way to replace humans which would take away jobs from people. A possible way out would be to move into a mindset that views algorithms as complementing workers while taking over boring and menial tasks.

Ghislaine raised another interesting question concerning “the potential to create a more symbiotic relationship with robots in home and work. ” This led to a lively debate on how to look at robots: whether as separate entities or intimately connected to the human being. Where are the borders of what is human and what is not? A researcher from the audience mentioned how that question is not even answerable anymore, as it is too late. Could we speak now of being on the verge of posthumanism? Could the future hold to all of us a fusion between the biological and the robotic?

A member of the audience pushed us back to today’s reality by asking vital questions concerning a time cap. We live in a global world populated by diverse types of human beings with different skills. It is important to never forget that we have people to feed that need jobs adapted to their diverse skills.

Ghislaine concluded making an appeal for a world more accepting of diversity including human, robots, and human-robots.

FutureFest 2015: Robot touches human

Are We Ready For Upcoming New Economic Turmoil ?

The debate “Through a glass darkly, how much economic turmoil can we predict to prepare for ?”was moderated by Stian Westlake. It joined together John Lancaster, author of the book “How to speak money ?”, scholar and author Barry Eichengreen and Fran Boait from Positive Money. All speakers were consensual that “there is not much knowledge about how money works, as money seems to be created out of thin air.” Unfortunately and as expected, the debate was gloomy, and its forecast quite catastrophic. The present political discourse of recovery was seen with suspicion, knowing as we know now that more borrowing corresponds to more debt, and aware that the invention of new money by banks was what led us to the 2008 crisis. What needs to be done was the pervasive question that puzzled the minds of the ones listening to the debate. As Barry Eichengreen mentioned “finance is too important to leave to financiers” and unfortunately, all seemed to agree with skepticism that “the financial world has nothing to do with serving society”. “What finance would look like it was designed to serve society?” someone asked, calling out for the necessity of all of us to become active citizens ready to ask the right questions such as : “What do we want from the financial sector ?”

Banks have to be utilities that serve the people, and there is an urgent need for structural change. Obviously there isn’t one simple solution to solve the economic complexity. Barry Eichengreen was a bit suspicious of whether sovereign money would be a possible solution, as positive money made a case for. As he said “if you whack the banking system the problem will go to some place else.” On a positive note Eichengreen mentioned how we got something after the crisis, succeeded avoiding the worst, even though we failed to do more reforms. But regulators continue to issue rules and governments continue to pass supplementary regulations, against the backdrop of scandals that keep the case for financial reform.

“There is a problem of culture in finance, the problem of bad behaviour.” How to educate finaciers and the population in general, as we are all part of the system? We can’t break banks, but we can make them safe by making shareholders commit more. Something to be addressed as well is the commercial credit rating agencies as these are “not the best kid on the block…”

Alternative financial models were also mentioned such as blockchain and crowdfunding, but Barry Eichengreen raised a word of caution questioning whether rapid financial innovation could lead to instability which was not such a good thing. The need to educate people about finance, to foster transparency and to change the system of incentives was also addressed.

What is The Future Of “To Be?”

A fascinating talk worth of notice was the one given by Professor Luciano Floridi, entitled “from things to ings“. Floridi made a case for a brand new conceptualization of the human being as an “interactable node” in a network, by revisiting physics and high school geometry notions of atoms, clouds, point, line and surface. According to Floridi, “things are interaction nodes” and “to be is to be interactable.” What impact could Floridi’s conceptualization really make in the cultural construction of human being. As interactable nodes, could we be softly shifting to a new type of biosphere consciousness expanding beyond self interest ?

Is Spielberg’s Minority Report Fiction Coming True ?

“We are all pre-criminals within the context of mass surveillance; a war on terror” said Edward Snowden, immediately reminding me of the precogs on Spielbergs masterpiece. Snowden spoke via webconference from Russia, on a panel with Vivienne Westwood (who had previously spoken about vulture capitalism) chaired by Nesta’s CEO Geoff Mulgan. In his eloquent talk, Snowden argued that our governments have deceived us about the benefits of surveillance as a form of protection. Even though the US surveillance programmes have intercepted messages from everyone for more than ten years,they weren’t able to stop terrorism, and in Snowden’s opinion, these programmes are spying programmes. “The only way to fix it”, said Snowden, “is to admit we are doing it, that it’s a problem, and that citizens’ rights are being violated”. Looking to the future, he said that making information private will win, and we’ll see a more liberal future, instead of an authoritarian one.

As human beings, we tend to give up when things don’t seem to go our way or when times get tough. The belief that life will simply roll over, give in to our demands, and allow us to achieve our goals is unrealistic. The truth is that life is neither for nor against us. No, life is simply just the natural process of existence. What we have to understand is that the power to determine the direction that our life takes is not decided by life itself, but rather by us. We hold the power, regardless of the challenges we may face. Therefore, our power rests in how we handle our daily interactions within the context of life. These interactions are what determine our ability to overcome what we may perceive as insurmountable odds. Therefore, we must learn not to blame life itself for our successes or failures, but when faced with challenges, to simply stand our ground and work smarter with a never give up attitude firmly in place.

The following comparison may add more clarity to what I am speaking of. Life is like a blank piece of paper. As that paper exists, so do we. However, just like that paper is blank, so too is our life until we create something out of it. Until that piece of paper is written on, there is no story, no direction, no purpose, but there is endless possibility (positive or negative-you will determine that by the story you write). However, interesting things begin to happen as soon as we begin to write on that once blank piece of paper. A story starts to emerge, a direction begins to tug at us, a purpose starts to form, and meaning which gives life to passion begins to set in. The same occurs when we choose to engage life. However, this engagement does not come without pitfalls.
You will find in many of America’s children classics such as Snow White, Pinocchio, and Cinderella that the main characters often have to overcome seemingly insurmountable pitfalls and challenges in order to achieve their dreams. I say this to say that we need to reinforce from young that never giving up in order to achieve our dreams is essential to our being able to live out our dreams, much like our childhood literary heroes.

Therefore, regardless of the pitfalls, or the challenges you may encounter in life, know that you get the final say in writing and living out your life’s story. With all of this in mind, I ask the question, what are you writing on your blank piece of paper called life? Are you utilizing the words and thought process of a quitter (one who buckles to the challenges of life that we all face)? Or, are you utilizing the words and thought process of a winner (one who never gives up in pursuit of his/her vision)?

I implore you to take on the role of the winner, and not to quit in the face of adversity. Do not succumb to life’s challenges, and never stop creating and working on making your life’s vision a reality. Remember, everyone has challenges to overcome. Life is full of them, but be passionate about your dreams, and continue to push, even when it seems most difficult.

For managers, nothing is more frequent and significant than making strategic decision under uncertainty. We make decisions that impact the very core of the organization. These decisions involve hiring or promoting people to lead our …

For managers, nothing is more frequent and significant than making strategic decision under uncertainty. We make decisions that impact the very core of the organization. These decisions involve hiring or promoting people to lead our organization based on beliefs regarding the risk of uncertain future performance. In business, many people and hiring decisions are based on assumptions concerning the likelihood of unpredictable events, such as the outcome of hiring, firing or promoting a person. Assessing people for complex positions is inherently difficult; but not impossible. The great Jack Welch proffered:

“Edge and execution … can be developed with experience and management training.”

During my research for this article, I found various opinions about the traps of making strategic decision under uncertainty. For example, a senior manager passionately explained from his personal perspective that not everyone recognizes the value in making great people decisions for all members of the organization. He volunteered that only at the very top of the organization leaders perceive value in selecting the right people to lead the organization. This value only seems to apply to the top few rungs of the hierarchical ladder. Additionally, he clarified that leaders are not exposed to adequate training to make the right hiring decisions. Consequently, they fail to look at the business in a new fresh way to improve the human capital or the company strategic position. In his opinion, managers are stuck using obsolete hierarchical organizational structures. In these organizational arrangements, the CEO is the most important player in the team. From that point forward, the vice presidents are more important than directors. And, managers and producers are even less important than directors.

There is a theoretical basis for this type of argument. In his book, Fernández-Aráoz stated that there are four keys reasons why it’ hard to make great people decisions. He explained that the probabilities are not in our favor in finding a top notch candidate to hire. He speculated that there are only a small number of extraordinary performers; hence we are inclined to hire an average performer. He posited that assessing people for complex positions is inherently difficult and hinted that influential psychological biases prejudice our decision-making process. He concluded that misplaced incentives and conflicts of interest easily sabotage our decisions. Albeit, strategic decisions about people are difficult, throughout our careers, we will want to be alert to problems such as misplaced incentives and conflicts of interest in our organizations and ourselves. In order to be successful, our objective is to overcome many of these kinds of biases. If we are free from biases, we will find ourselves putting the right people into the right jobs much more often than other leaders. If we differentiate ourselves in the organization as effective leaders by selecting the right people for the jobs, we will grow in the organization. Recently, I read a quote by Jack Welch that highlights the important of people decisions. He wrote:

“Any strategy, no matter how smart, is dead on arrival unless a company brings it to life with people—the right people.”

This means that if we eliminate biases in our strategic decisions about people, we will pick more of the “right people.”

How To Identify The Biases In The Strategic Decision Making Process ?

Identifying and correcting for biases in the strategic decision making process should be an integral method for dealing with uncertainty. As human beings, we have the design and ability to make decisions while guarding against biases that interferes with our growth as leaders. It is important to become aware of the major biases we are likely to encounter when making strategic decision about people. The list is quite extensive and includes anchoring, bandwagon effect, hindsight, confirmation and first impression procrastination, overrating capability, branding and others.

In his new book, Claudio Fernández-Aráoz (2014) argued, “we have the wrong brain and the wrong education to get people decisions right.” He explained that we distrust people who are not similar to us. Further, he proffered “To succeed in a globally minded environment, we need to surround ourselves with people who have diverse backgrounds and complementary skills.” He is not alone; a senior manager explained it this way. He said that we see examples all around us in our work environment, where we failed to make the best decisions about hiring, firing or promoting people. Recently, after following an intensive interview process, this senior manager hired a strong candidate who had a very good resume and years of experience working for top-notch companies. The candidate was hired based on her background, warm smile and positive energy. Soon after joining the company, the new hired joined the department, and she was pleasant and got along with everyone. However, after six months, the other team members openly complained that the new hired was not meeting expectations. In order to avoid office politics and backstabbing, this senior manager was determined to give the new hired a fair shake. However, at the one year anniversary, it was clear. The new hired was a non-performer, and the senior manager admitted that he had hired a dud.

The reason this hiring mistake happened is simple: Strategic decision making under uncertainty is very difficult for leaders. Our brain is powerful, but it is not perfect. The cognitive biases processed by our brain are some of the reasons why making strategic decision under uncertainty is very difficult for leaders. Many philosophers and practitioners would rightly argue that the brain can be trained. Some will argue that our brain is like an old computer comprised of hardware and software that has not had an upgrade for millennium. As humans, we can biologically reproduce our brain and train it. But, presently, the brain cannot be upgraded generations after generations with new hardware and software devices.

Many anthropologists would argue that our brain helped us navigate the African savannah, the tropical rainforests and other environments. Most would support an argument that people decisions were mostly based on familiarity with family and acquaintances. As we spread out from Africa, people who were similarly dress and followed an established code of conduct were friendly. In this scenario, making strategic decision meant to either fight or flight when meeting new people. In our contemporary civilization, it is no longer useful to fight or flight when making strategic decisions under uncertainty about people. Instead of fighting each others, we now fight to overcome our cognitive biases that affect strategic decision making. How could we overcome some of these biases ?

“We’re living in the final days of the pre-data driven world. Analytics, both to drive improved human decision making and to drive intelligent, so-called, ‘smart’ machines will permeate all aspects of our lives. From cradle …

“We’re living in the final days of the pre-data driven world. Analytics, both to drive improved human decision making and to drive intelligent, so-called, ‘smart’ machines will permeate all aspects of our lives. From cradle to grave our lives will create data, and whether the use of this data will enrich our lives or threaten us – is up to how we think about the challenges today.” Charles Radclyffe

From his student days at Cambridge until becoming the CEO of BIPB, Charles Radclyffe´s rich life journey led him finally to the immense world of data science, as the CEO of BIPB, a renowned global Big Data and Analytics Consultancy Firm, that was founded in 2005. Since 2010 that the company organizes #drivenbydata Summit, an interesting and important event about Big Data and Analytics, that will occur in London next week, the 20th of March, at level 39. #drivenbydata is a quarterly Summit that gathers together the best thought leaders and professionals interested in Big Data to discuss issues concerning Big Data & Analytics developments.

Intelligenthq interviewed Charles Radclyffe concerning his career, his journey working as CEO of BIPB, the summit and his unique vision concerning Big Data.

1. Could you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your background?

What I often find amusing is that in telling my ‘story’ it doesn’t at all seem clear that the path I have chosen is the one I ought to have followed at an earlier stage. The good thing is that in my role as CEO of BIPB I can trace all the skills and experience that help me do my job effectively to my earlier endeavours. I studied Law at Cambridge although never practiced it as a profession. I had always been fascinated by the opportunities technology created for society, and so it seemed natural to start my first IT business rather than jump on the career ladder. In fact, I started my first business before I even took my place at Cambridge – having budgeted very poorly for my gap year, I found myself back in my hometown after just four months abroad – and penniless! Well, not quite penniless- I still had £50, but I used this to advertise my services as an IT support engineer, and got lucky. Five years later, I had sold this business –the largest of its kind in the Westcountry – and having graduated also. Next I worked in the AdTech industry for a small Affiliate Network that we later sold to a large Direct Marketing business. Following this, I spent a couple of years in Banking – this is where I first was introduced to BIPB’s founder – and we agreed a few years later that I would succeed him as CEO in order to put my energy to growing our Consulting business.

2. Can you tell us about BIPB? How has the company evolved, what are it present and future challenges?

Our business has evolved greatly in the five years I’ve been part of it. We originally focused on a single technology product, and were experts in this. It was a very simple strategy and worked very well, but over time it was clear that our clients were calling on us for a broader range of services. When we ask our clients what their biggest challenges are, we hear the same stories. Our clients are looking for how to unlock transformational business value from their data much like companies such as Netflix or Uber have transformed their industries using analytics. Our clients are also looking for a trusted advisor who can help them make sense of the technology landscape. Our Enterprise clients aren’t just looking to implement and integrate the latest Hadoop variant – they are looking to build a Centre of Excellence for Big Data – platforms for analytics, and they want it robust, scalable, secure and performant. Thirdly, our clients are struggling with the massive skills shortage that exists in the Data Science/ Analytics industry. We know we need to create new skills in the market, and we know that the best work we do is face to face with our clients. That’s why we’re investing heavily in our relationships with top educational establishments and hiring some of the brightest minds and strongest personalities we can, training them in Data Science and Analytics so we can better serve our clients. This is what our mission is today.

3. BIPB has been organizing the #drivenbydata Summit for the past 4 years. Can you tell us what led you to start the summit, and what you have learned with the experience?

We started the Summit originally as a day to share ideas, skills, and best practice with our own team – who we very rarely manage to get together as they are always so busy out solving our client’s challenges. The next step in the Summit’s evolution was when our clients started asking us if they could send other people along. We knew we couldn’t refuse this – but we were initially wary of the impact this might have on our initial intentions. From the feedback we received, it quickly became clear that hearing the art of the possible was the main draw most of our clients had to our event. We’ve since found it’s become a virtuous circle: the more we focus on the quality of the presentations, the higher audience we attract – and the more competition there is for people to who want to present!

4. What can we expect from this year´s summit? Can you highlight some of its speakers?

Our first Summit of 2015 will be our best yet – simply by virtue of the great speakers we have. Our keynote is Neil Chandler who many people will recognise as one of the industry thought leaders and a key analyst at Gartner. Neil will be setting the scene for the day and handing over to George Mathew, COO of our sponsor Alteryx – one of the hottest Data technologies on the market in 2015. George will be sharing his vision for Alteryx, and explaining why so many companies are turning to an agile data integration solution rather than their industrial IT solutions to answer their analytics questions. In the afternoon, we have Donald Farmer from Qlik presenting why we are all so natural at data analytics – but why we need technology that better serves us. Following this, we have Andy Cotgreave from Tableau explaining why despite many people being worried about some of the latest advances in Artificial Intelligence technology, there is no need to panic and human based Data Driven Decision making will continue to be the imperative for a long while to come. Of course, Artificial Intelligence is the goal of all of us in the analytics industry – and to entertain us at the end of the day will be Brent Spiner, the actor who despite his roles in the film Independence Day and the hit TV show, The Big Bang Theory, is still most famous for playing ‘Data’ in Star Trek: The Next Generation and subsequent feature films.

5. In your opinion what are the most important challenges and opportunities presented by Big Data and the Internet of Things?

I personally resist using the term ‘Big Data’ wherever I can, as I find that it really has no meaning as it neither describes how it is useful nor indicates the thresholds for when it becomes a problem! I choose to use the term ‘analytics’ which, I believe can be used interchangeably with Big Data and describes much more simply what it is that ‘Big Data’ is useful for! It’s the convergence with the Internet of Things that makes analytics really exciting though. Currently, IoT devices are busy collecting data which feed into our ‘Big Data’ systems. It’s when the operational feedback loop though that the solutions really get exciting – imagine moisture sensors passing data back to your Home Automation System which together with weather predictions analyses and determines the optimum amount to water your garden via the irrigation system? Now imagine this on an industrial scale! No longer will we need to genetically modify crops in order to optimise their growth, we can optimise using analytics – and we can all eat organic! Everywhere we look there are opportunities for analytics + IoT convergence (with a bit of AI too)! This is why this is such an exciting industry to be part of.

6. With the amount of data increasing everyday and doubling how do you the future of hyper data and the necessary simplification?

We’ve got so good at collecting volumes of data in real time, we’ve lost sight of the fact that our IT systems of today we’re only really designed to deal with aggregated information at moments in time to report the ‘what’ that’s happened. The human mind is in fact very good at taking all the sensory inputs we have and only reacting to a fraction (and storing even less). This is why the current research in Artificial Intelligence is so necessary. Unless we can start to build machines which ‘think’ (by which I mean in this context, process information) like we do – then we’re going to keep getting bogged down by the volume and variety of data. It’s questions like this, that my team and I love to help our clients solve!

]]>http://www.intelligenthq.com/technology/data-science-as-the-art-of-the-possible-interview-with-charles-radclyffe-ceo-of-bipb/feed/0We Are All connected: The Power of the Social Media Ecosystemhttp://www.intelligenthq.com/social-media-posts/we-are-all-connected-the-power-of-the-social-media-ecosystem/
http://www.intelligenthq.com/social-media-posts/we-are-all-connected-the-power-of-the-social-media-ecosystem/#commentsThu, 12 Mar 2015 07:00:01 +0000http://www.intelligenthq.com/?p=45225

We Are All connected: The Power of the Social Media Ecosystem Social media is still a relatively new phenomenon and we are still learning of the power and influence that it has, and the benefits …

Social media is still a relatively new phenomenon and we are still learning of the power and influence that it has, and the benefits that it can bring to our lives. This is particularly true regarding organisations that have struggled in many cases to get to grips with what social media can potentially offer to them. Some organisations have written off social media as a “passing fad”. Other more savvy business owners have seen that it almost certainly can have some benefit for their businesses but really understanding how it can be leveraged for success has proven to be difficult for them. In 2011, Richard Hanna, Andrew Rohm and Victoria L. Crittenden examined the power of the social media ecosystem in a study published in Business Horizons. As they rightly argue:

“Consumers are no longer merely passive recipients in the marketing exchange process. Today, they are taking an increasingly active role in co-creating everything from product design to promotional messages.”

Social media has driven this change. This has led to the dispelling of many myths that have now turned out to be outdated or untrue. For example ideas such as: brand managers own and orchestrate their brands; phones are for making phone calls; and providing a forum for customers to talk is dangerous and risky, have all been thrown out. None is viable anymore. At the same time, social media has led to the development of platforms where organisations can gain influence. Of these, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Google + are particularly important but the number of platforms is growing by the day. This has led to organisations experimenting on each to see what works and how they can attract customers.

One learning that has become apparent is that social media platforms are spheres of influence where organisations can engage customers. Such platforms create the opportunity for relationships to be built between customers and organisations. It is argued that the new approach that can help organisations to be successful is no longer about telling the customers a message, but rather, having conversations with customers. It is now all about engagement, and simply repeatedly promoting a brand in a sales-like manner on these platforms is not enough – in fact it is most likely to lead to customer disengagement. Customers do not want to just watch from the side lines anymore. Rather, they are involved and they interact, and social media campaigns by businesses need to reflect this change, or fail.

How To Integrate The Social Media Strategies ?

One problem that is all too commonly seen with organisations and their interaction with social media is that there is no one overarching strategy that applies to all platforms. Indeed, frequently organisations take a piecemeal approach to each platform and there is no consistent message. While marketers need to apply a consistent message and approach they do however have to bear in mind that each platform is different –what people are looking for on YouTube is not the same as on LinkedIn or as on Twitter. The message must be consistent but platform-appropriate. This can be challenging to achieve for many businesses. There are marketing questions that organisations need to ask themselves to be able to achieve success in this area such as: who is the target audience? On what platforms are different segments of the target audience? What content is the business trying to promote? And finally, how can this content be best propagated through the social media ecosystem? In considering and answering these questions, organisations have a much greater likelihood of success in their social media strategies.

Recommendations have been made for organisations that are trying to navigate this brave new world where conflicting advice may often make things challenging. For one, the old marketing basic of applying and measuring performance indicators is important to making sure that success is achieved, or if not, lessons are learned. Another one is that budgets do not have to be great to succeed in this area – but common sense does need to be applied. Understanding where those that can influence brand success exist on the different platforms is also helpful, and leveraging that influence is even better. Standing out from the crowd is important, as with any sort of marketing. Finally telling a story can help to reel customers in. Do you apply these lessons when you use social media to promote your business? Perhaps it’s about time you started.